Walt WhitmanLeaves of Grass
Whitman is today regarded as America's Homer or Dante, and his work the touchstone for literary originality in the New World. In Leaves of Grass, he abandoned the rules of traditional poetry - breaking the standard metred line, discarding the obligatory rhyming scheme, and using the vernacular. Emily Dickinson condemned his sexual and physiological allusions as `disgraceful', but Emerson saw the book as the `most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed'.
American poet, essayist, journalist and humanist, born 31 May 1819 in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA and died 26 March 1892 in Camden, New Jersey, USA..
